UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



nation will ever be as unselfish and fair-minded as 

 the individuals composing it? The experience of 

 most of us with individual Germans has been of the 

 most satisfactory kind an honest, sober-minded, 

 fair-dealing, humane people is our verdict; but the 

 nation embattled and fired with the thirst of con- 

 quest and in the grip of a military despotism, re- 

 verts to the temper of the original Hun: the atroc- 

 ities their government and armies are guilty of 

 shock mankind. The history of all other nations 

 shows similar contrasts, but not, in our time, to the 

 same degree. 



The streams and rivers all find their way to the 

 sea; the conditions and influences that shape their 

 courses are few and constant; but once they are 

 united in the ocean, a new set of influences is called 

 into play: the tides appear and the vast ocean cur- 

 rents begin to flow and modify the climates of the 

 globe. The laws of water are not changed, but new 

 laws or forces, that have then* sources beyond the 

 earth, at once begin to operate. An application, 

 not too precise and literal, of this fact to the na- 

 tions of the earth may throw some light upon their 

 behavior. 



